1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to reformatting data, and more particularly to reformatting messages introduced into a user interface.
2. Description of the Related Art
Customer service often involves numerous customer service representatives who receive and respond to communications from customers. These representatives often operate computer workstations to assist their response.
The workstations are typically connected in a network having a centralized database of customer service information. Software based systems manage customer responses and provide interfaces for entering information about customer communications into the database. A customer can contact the customer service representative and orally convey a message. The representative then enters the message into the database by invoking a data entry screen (user interface) with a message display area and typing the message into the message display area. Typing messages directly into the user interface works fairly well as the customer service representative controls the format of the entered text.
Customer service has been migrating to new forms of communication to complement or substitute for traditional telephone conversations between representatives and customers. Among these forms of communication is electronic mail, which can arrive at a customer service representative's workstation through the Internet or the like. Unfortunately, these electronic mails can have a variety of formats and the communications received via electronic mail will not necessarily integrate with interfaces and databases provided by the customer response system.
Merely copying text from a received electronic mail into an operating system clipboard, and pasting the text into a user interface provided by a customer service system does not remedy the potential incompatibility between the formats received text and the user interface. Rather, pasting copied text typically displays individual words split across lines, and longer lines as an erratic series of full and truncated lines. This makes the message much more difficult to read.
Additionally, long messages do not cause a message display region in the user interface to scroll or otherwise account for the presence of additional text. Instead, portions of the pasted message spill into other data entry regions on the user interface.
To remedy the above, the customer service representative must substantially edit the pasted message to make it compatible with the format of the user interface.
Thus, there remains a need to automatically reformat copied electronic messages to provide compatibility with interfaces and databases having formats that differ from those of the copied messages.